Grooming and Hygiene Always wash your hands before and after touching your gecko or habitat contents to help prevent Salmonella and other infectious diseases
Signs of a Healthy Pet:
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Respiratory disease – labored breathing and mucus in the nose and mouth. A cold or damp habitat is commonly the cause. Contact your veterinarian.
Metabolic bone/vitamin deficiency – inability to absorb calcium due to insufficient UVB light. This can result in deformities and soft bones, swollen limbs and lethargy. Contact your veterinarian.
Vitamin A Toxicity - This is a common problem that occurs when dragons are over supplemented. Many multi-vitamins contain levels of VitA and should be offered sparingly. Toxicity is characterized by a swelling of the throat and eyes, and proceeding to a bloating of the body and lethargy.
Internal Parasites - Symptoms of internal parasites include weight loss, worms in the stools, runny stools, gaping and listlessness. If you observe a combination of these symptoms you should take your gecko to a veterinarian to have a stool sample examined to determine if there are any parasites present and if so, what kind they are. Follow their recommendation for treatment.
The majority of the tokays in pet stores are wild caught and, like all wild caught imported reptiles, heavily stressed, usually dehydrated, often emaciated, and always parasitized.
Take a fresh fecal to a reptile veterinarian for a fecal flotation to determine if the animal is infected with worms; if so, treatment is required (generally, oral medication administered 2-3 times over a period of 2-3, or 4-6 weeks).
Leopard geckos may live 20 or more years. They will grow to approximately 8-10 inches long.
Be wary of feeding insects from your yard! These insects may be contaminated by pesticides and or herbicides used in the area. Even if you don't use pesticides, someone in the neighborhood might, and therefore the insects may be affected.
It is not advisable to use types of insects you are uncertain of as being safe food. They may be toxic to your gecko. Fireflies caught in the summers are thought to cause death to some reptiles. Recent studies have demonstrated that "the ingestion of fireflies (or "lightning bugs", as they are sometimes called) can kill lizards and, thus, should be considered potentially toxic to all herps." (Adler, 1998)
Playground sand should not for use with juveniles as geckos will ingest the sand and it can result in impaction and death. Other substrate that may cause problems are: bark, shavings and other products made with moss. They are easily ingested and have been known to cause impaction potting soil as the geckos may eat the perlite it contains
cedar or pine as the fumes and resins can be toxic to reptiles astroturf with rough edges as the geckos will ingest the particles that fray off.
This species lives to be between 8 and 10 years old in captivity.
Day geckos usually grow to be between 4 to 10 inches long and may from 3 to 15 years
These geckos can live 15+ years and reach 8-10 inches in size.
One major problem with Fat-tailed geckos is that their systems are somewhat weaker than leopard geckos. A Fat-tail will direct 25% of its energy into self-preservation and little into reproductive success. Therefore, a routine worming twice yearly is required. Immediately after the last eggs of the year and just before the next breeding season, worming should be done.
